9.24.2010

For many reasons the New START treaty is proving to be a costly affirmation of nuclear arms as a national priority. The ratification process has empowered pro-nuclear interest groups. Debate during ratification has also cemented assurances to fund the multi-billion dollar missile defense and prompt global strike weapons systems while undermining the possibility of political opposition. Campaign contribution and lobbying disclosure data both help to explain why corporate contractors with stakes in these programs have been ably protected by both Republican and Democratic Senators throughout the ratification debate. Like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that was debated in the 1990s, the political process of New START ratification has insulated nuclear weapons spending, as well as large budgets for other weapons systems. On balance New START has already exerted strong anti-disarmament influences on federal decisionmakers, making it an arms affirmation treaty.

Ratification and the Budget

On September 16 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported the New START treaty to the Senate floor by a vote of 14-4. If the Democrats believe they have the Republican votes lined up a full-Senate ratification vote is expected to take place after the upcoming elections, during the lame duck period.

The federal government will not have a budget before the end of the fiscal year (Oct. 1). In place of a detailed budget the Congress is now set to pass a continuing resolution (CR). CRs typically fund government at the previous year's levels until the legislature can draft and approve a comprehensive budget. There is much uncertainty and anxiety about how long departments will operate under these constraints; without a budget planning will be very difficult.

Partly because of pressure to ratify New START, the Obama administration is now poised to make several exceptions within the budget to allow for immediate increased spending, and to facilitate long-term planning in specific areas. One of these exceptions would guarantee a large increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration's budget, by about $624 million over 2010 levels. In all the USA would spend upwards of $7.009 billion on nuclear weapons for 2011. A large portion of the increase is to lock in "modernization" of the US nuclear weapons complex.

Arms Affirmation

New START has already proven to be one of the most costly treaties in recent history. Whether or not the treaty is ratified, negotiation between the White House and Senate Democrats and their Senate Republican colleagues has already produced a multi-billion dollar deal ensuring the military and its contractors receive billions in budget increases for, among other things, a new plutonium bomb pit factory, a growing missile defense program that is already as large as the NNSA nuclear weapons program, and hundreds of millions in funding to convert nuclear-capable missiles into conventional strike weapons. The dynamics of the ratification process, fed by the right and left, has produced this and other contrary outcomes to the supposed intent of the treaty - disarmament. New START, however, should not be seen as a disarmament treaty. Indeed, it would be more accurate to classify New START as an arms affirmation treaty.

The nominal reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons the treaty requires of the United States are rather trivial when contextualized alongside the multi-billion dollar nuclear and non-nuclear weapons programs that the treaty text and Senate ratification process have committed the White House and Senate to authorize and fund. Some of New START's key shortcomings include the following; The treaty's "reductions" only address deployed strategic nuclear weapons, not tactical weapons, nor strategic weapons held in reserve. Because of the way nuclear weapons are counted in the treaty, the USA may, if it chooses to, withdraw as little as 162 weapons from its arsenal to reach the 1550 warhead limit. This would amount to a mere 8% reduction, and again the reduction only affects deployed strategic weapons. In fact, if the USA choses to juggle warheads among different platforms under the treaty's accounting rules, US Strategic Command could, in theory, actually upload warheads to the arsenal, keeping more than 1550 at the ready. Table 1. outlines the treaty's so-called disarmament requirements.

Table 1., US nuclear force "reductions" required under New START. Under the treaty the USA must reduce its total strategic deployed arsenal to 1550 weapons on 700 platforms. The treaty counts each bomber as 1 nuclear weapon, even though bombers are capable of carrying 16-20 nuclear weapons a piece.Thus if the United States currently has 1,968 strategic weapons deployed on 798 platforms, it need only reduce the platform count 98. It does not need to de-deploy 418 weapons to reach the 1550 limit. Rather, US war planners can, if they choose to do so, upload cruise missiles and bombs onto bombers that are "reduced" from the ICBM and SLBM legs of the triad. Thus, because of the bomber counting rule, the United States instantly has 256 weapons hidden in 60 bombers. More so, it has an upload capacity of 820 spaces for cruise missiles and bombs on these bombers, which in theory would allow it to deploy well over the 1550 limit, so long as it reduces ICMB and SLBM weapons by 162.

Ironically, many "peace and security" foundations and organizations, from the Ploughshares Fund and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, to the American Friends Service Committee and Peace Action West have been lobbying aggressively for New START ratification, further empowering Republican Senators to demand even larger investments in nuclear and non-nuclear weapons programs. The Obama administration has proven more than willing to promise larger funds.

From the very start, New START was negotiated with the understanding that it would not impede modernization of nuclear weapons, nor the nuclear weapons complex, and also that it would not impede ongoing and planned investments in missile defense and prompt global strike (PGS) weapons systems. In Article V the treaty text makes it clear that nuclear modernization is allowed, and also provides an important exemption for the current Ground-based Midcourse missile defense system.

In an attempt to win Republican votes, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. John Kerry allowed the minority party's "Resolution of Advice and Consent," drafted by Sen. Lugar, to replace his own text, and to accompany the treaty to the floor for full Senate ratification. Sen. Lugar's text replaced Sen. Kerry's already strong endorsement of nuclear modernization, missile defense, and PGS with an even bolder endorsement and binding set of assurances. Two additional amendments were made to Lugar's text by Republican Senators Risch and DeMint to assure funding increases for new nuclear weapons capable submarines, missiles and bombers (the strategic "triad"), and a clause expressing that the sense of the Senate is to build not just any missile defense system, but to approach the vision of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative - an impenetrable shield over North America ready to strike down one or thousands of warheads from the sky.

Lugar's approved resolution further insulates nuclear modernization, missile defense, and prompt global strike, not just legally from the treaty's requirements, but politically from any official, agency, or advocacy group that would seek to cut the budgets of any of these programs. In this way the ratification process, characterized by intense pressure from the White House and arms control and "peace" groups, has actually undercut the possibility of opposition to new weapons programs that will consume many billions of dollars, many decades into the future. In testimony and op-ed pieces centrist arms control groups like the Arms Control Association and Council for a Livable World, have actually emphasized that New START imposes no limits on modernization, nor on PGS or missile defense. Liberal "peace" groups have tended to omit any references to modernization or other weapons systems that will be given the green light by the treaty in their communications with constituents and the public.

With respect to nuclear weapons modernization, Lugar's text, now the official Senate text reads;

"(iii) the United States is committed to providing the resources needed to achieve these objectives, at a minimum at the levels set forth in the presidents 10-year plan provided to the Congress pursuant to section 1251 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010,(B) If appropriations are enacted that fail to meet the resources requirements set forth in the President's 10-year plan, or if at any times more resources are required than estimated in the President's 10-year plan, the President shall submit to Congress, within 60 days of such enactment or the identification of the requirement for such additional resources, as appropriate, a report datelining—(i) how the President proposed to remedy the resource shortfall;(ii) if additional resources are required, the proposed level of funding required and an identification of the stockpile work, campaign, facility, site, asset, program, operation, activity, construction, or project for which additional funds are required;"

Modernization of the Stockpile and Complex

Required resources for modernization are immense. The "section 1251 plan," written by the Obama White House outlines a large array of investments in nuclear weapons modernization, including, funding to sustain the large weapons research and design laboratories at Livermore, CA, and Los Alamos, NM; funds to work directly on the nuclear stockpile by "reusing" "refurbishing," and even "replacing" components with newer and more advanced capabilities; and funds to rebuild the complete core of the federal government's industrial nuclear complex where nuclear weapons and materials are fabricated, tested, and assembled. This possibly constitutes the federal government's single largest program-specific capital infrastructure investment.

By NNSA's own definition, a "major construction project" is any capital investment costing more than $20,000,000. The agency currently has 14 such projects underway in the nuclear weapons complex. The largest among these will cost many billions of dollars. For example, the CMRR Nuclear Facility's last official price tag was $3.2 billion, but sources close to the design process report that it is nearing the $6 billion mark.

The High Explosive Pressing Facility is scheduled to cost $134 million.

Seven of NNSA's 14 major construction projects have no total cost estimate. The Agency also plans to begin other major construction projects within the next five to ten years.

Table 3., reproduced from the section 1251 report, shows major planned infrastructure projects within the nuclear weapons complex between 2010 and 2030.

Then there is one project that is omitted from NNSA's own construction accounting budget because its upfront cost are being borne by a private developer and local government in the Kansas City Area. The facility, "KCRIMS," which is estimated to cost half a billion to build, will then be leased back the NNSA for a cost of almost a billion dollars over its operating life-span. KCRIMs will be a large industrial factory where most of the thousands of parts inside every US nuclear weapon model will be manufactured.

The FY2011 nuclear weapons budget is stocked with increased design and fabrication accounts for nuclear weapons. For example, the Obama administration suggests spending $249 million on the W76 "Life Extension Program" (LEP). With 768 W76 warheads in the deployed strategic stockpile, this weapon constitutes the true backbone of US nuclear force.x Its life extension program will cost at least several billion. Other LEPs with similar or even larger cost estimates, like the B-61 gravity bomb, are planned or underway.

Section 6 of the Senate's ratification resolution calls on the executive branch to clarify its plans for the prompt global strike weapons program. PGS is reportedly "embraced by the new administration," whose top advisors see it as a more usable strategic alternative to nuclear weapons. With respect to Missile Defense the treaty resolution reads, "It is the understanding of the United States that [...] the New START Treaty does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missile defenses other than the requirements of paragraph 3, Article V." Paragraph 3, Article V imposes limits on the conversion of ICBMs and SLBMs for use as missile defense interceptors, but the treaty excludes existing Minuteman ICBMs used at Vandenberg and Ft. Greely Air Force Bases for this very purpose. No other ICBM or SLBM is proposed or desired by the Pentagon for such a weapons system. The limitation, therefore, is not one.

Senate Brokerage of Arms Spending

An analysis of campaign funds partly helps to explain why the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has been so diligent in crafting the treaty resolution's language, making sure that nuclear weapons modernization, missile defense, and prompt global strike are not limited in any meaningful way, and that planned major investments in these weapons programs will proceed under the most favorable fiscal and political conditions. Democrats and Republicans have agreed upon big investments throughout the ratification debate. The difference is in how much they propose to increase weapons procurement budgets by, with the Democrats offering somewhat less than Republicans.

Democrats and Republicans have been protecting the interests of nuclear weapons, missile defense and PGS contractors who are among their biggest financial supporters and who have the most active professional lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Over the last five years members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have received more than $765,000 in contributions from missile defense, prompt global strike, and nuclear weapons contractors. Democrats led Republicans with approximately $424,000 in contractor cash. Republicans received $341,000 from the same set of contractors.

Senators with the most arms contractor cash were Christopher Dodd (D), James Inhofe (R), Jim Webb (D), and Jim DeMint (R). Sen. Dodd's commanding lead is due to a singularly large pattern of contributions from United Technologies, a diversified military contractor headquartered in his state, Connecticut. Without Dodd's $115,250 in United Technologies Corp cash the Democrat's would trail Republicans in total weapons contractor contributions by about $31,000.

Figure 2. Distribution of contributions of NNSA, missile defense and PGS contracting corporations made to SFR Committee members over the past five years. Data compiled from http://www.opensecrets.org

In raw cash terms the largest contributions by corporations have come from United Technologies, Honeywell International, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, CH2M Hill, General Dynamics and Boeing. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor from the PGS "Conventional Strike Missile," a modified Minuteman III ICBM with a hypersonic "payload delivery vehicle" capable of attacking any point on earth within one hour. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are the prime contractors for the Missile Defense Agency's "Ground-based Midcourse Defense," weapons system. United Technologies, Raytheon, and General Dynamics and Honeywell have numerous contracts and subcontracts supporting these and other missile defense or PGS weapons programs.

Only three Senators on the Committee, all Democrats, have reported no significant contributions from missile defense, PGS, and nuclear weapons contractors: Russell Feingold, Robert Casey, and Edward Kaufman.

A look at lobbying records is also helpful in understanding the dynamics of the New START ratification process and why it is resulting in such a favorable outcome for specific weapons programs and their contractors. Since signing New START on April 8 2010, military contractors with stakes in missile defense have spent approximately $59 million lobbying the Senate. Raytheon alone has spent $22 million since April to employ its own lobbyists as well as firms like the Breaux Lott Leadership Group, Potomac Advocates and DLA Piper, LLP.

In the same period other military contractors have reported similarly large lobbying expenses in filings that mention "missile defense": Lockheed Martin $13 million, Boeing and Northrop Grumman both $9 million, Honeywell $1.6 million, and Orbital Sciences Corporation half a million. Other professional lobbying firms employed by these corporations include Clark & Weinstock, McBee Strategic Consulting, The Foxtail Group, and Carter Consulting.

Table 5., Top 10 missile defense contractors and their lobbyists listing "missile defense" in their Senate disclosure filings between April 8, 2010 and September 22, 2010.

9.17.2010

Passage of New START in a 14-4 vote out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is already being hailed by Democrats and arms control NGOs as a substantial victory. A floor vote for ratification is now apparently set to occur after the elections.

While much noise has been made about the New START treaty's cut to the nuclear weapons stockpile, the actual required reduction in arms may be as low as 8%, or 162 warheads out of a total of thousands. Furthermore, keep in mind too that this only affects deployed strategic warheads, not "tactical" weapons, and not weapons in the "reserve" stockpile.

So why the big deal? Why are both sides fighting like mad over a treaty that really requires virtually no change to the status quo US-Russia relationship and US nuclear stockpile?

Here's why in a nutshell:

1. The Democrats, led by the Obama administration, want the treaty badly in order to prove that their means of combating proliferation and the rising power of states like Iran is better than the Republican strategy. The difference essentially is that the Democrats propose to give the impression that the USA is cutting its arsenal and seeking "global zero." Of course it's not and the Dems intend to fund the US nuclear complex at large levels. Long-range national security state doctrine calls for keeping nukes far into the future, and modernizing them the whole way along. But the Democratic foreign policy establishment thinks their plan will provide superior power, diplomatic and military, when dealing with nations that pose a threat to US imperial interests. It's a tough balancing act, this anti-nuclear nuclearism! Thankfully the liberal militarists have found willing allies in the foundation community. Funds and NGOs like Ploughshares, American Friends Service Committee, and Peace Action West have lobbied extensively for ratification, proving that a little money goes a long way in politics.

2. The Republican strategy remains what the old gipper gave us - "peace through strength." G. W. Bush pursued it with his aggressive nuclear weapons programs, but the Democrats managed to back him down. Undeterred, many Republicans think the Democrats are wasting the national security state's time and energy and would just rather invest huge sums in weapons and invade and occupy nations as a first and early recourse when problems arise. There remains a great deal of ideological opposition to treaties, especially arms control pacts, whether or not they actually constrain US military might.

3. In addition to this acrimonious debate about imperial strategy, there's bread and butter. While New START doesn't pose any threats to any military funding whatsoever, it does offer a major opportunity to demand huge funding increases for several weapons programs.

A. Chief among these is the nuclear weapons program. New START ratification is being used as the primary forum in which to hash out the budget for nuclear weapons over the next ten years. Thus far supporters of the nuke complex have gotten a pretty good deal; a minimum $10 billion increase over the next ten years to build a new plutonium pit factory, new uranium plant, new weapons components factory, and other major capital projects. Corker and Isakson's votes on September 16 to pass the treaty to the full Senate for a ratification vote may signal that they have received even larger funding commitments for the huge nuclear facilities in their states, or that they will use their vote on the floor to extort better deals between now and then.

B. Then there's "missile defense" and "prompt global strike." Missile defense has its own agency in the Pentagon and budget larger than the NNSA's. Prompt global strike, a new conventional strategic weapons system capable of killing anyone on the planet in under an hour with hypersonic munitions, is a multi-hundred million dollar and growing program. Both are getting very large increases in Obama's FY2011 budget, due in part to Republican demands that neither program be constrained by New START. Of course the treaty does not such thing, but the concern is really a theatrical way of demanding even larger increases for these weapons systems. The Democrats are too happy to oblige. Obama and Biden are champions of prompt global strike.

4. Thus the Senators on both sides of the debate are working for the nuclear weapons complex, Pentagon, and their powerful corporate contractors. The Democrats have already offered up major funding increases, even before Republican opposition. Conservatives have only pulled the issue further to the right, and arms control foundations and NGOs have fed the whole process by making New START out to be vastly more important and meaningful than it objectively is.

Still don't see the bi-partisan consensus to fund the nuclear weapons complex and Pentagon's missile defense and prompt global strike programs and contractors? Here's some campaign finance data for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members' 2010 election cycle bank accounts. Both Democrats and Republicans are well endowed, demonstrating why the interests of the nuclear weapons complex and other weapons programs are absolutely not threatened by New START.

[The first number ranks the contributing corporation among the Senator's top donors for 2010. Figures from http://www.opensecrets.org. Raytheon, Textron, Lockheed, Boeing, United Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, SAIC, Carlyle, BAE, EADS all contract with the Missile Defense Agency and related Pentagon program offices. Lockheed serves at the lead contractor for prompt global strike. Bechtel, Honeywell, CH2M Hill, McDermott (through its BWXT subsidiary), URS, Flour, and Lockheed Martin contract with the NNSA to operate the US nuclear weapons complex. AECOM is subcontractor for the US nuclear weapons program.]

About Me

I'm a writer, ethnographer, and historian with a PhD in sociology. My current work focuses on economic and social development. I write occasionally for Counterpunch, East Bay Express, Z Magazine, Foreign Policy in Focus, Dollars and Sense, the Anderson Valley Advertiser, and other publications.